An Outdoorsman‛s Journal
Deep South Fishing Trip
Hello friends: I am writing to you once again this week about a very unique trip that I took to my brother Tom Walters’ lake home on Lake Washington, which is in west central Mississippi and one of the nation’s top 10 crappie lakes. I have written in the past about my love for hunting and fishing in both Louisiana and Mississippi and this adventure once again reaffirmed that belief. Sunday, April 4–High 68, low 44 Today is day five of this trip and the first day that I did not wear long johns. As I wrote last week, for April in the deep south, the weather has been cold and windy which has resulted in very few crappies. Today that would slowly start to turn around and I might add that when I say slow, Washington Lake has an 11-inch legal minimum for crappie to be kept, and we have caught plenty that are a half-inch shy.
My goal for this trip was to at least tie my personal crappie record, which is a 14-incher that I caught on Lake Puckaway, and to possibly beat that. Two days ago, I caught a black crappie while fishing in the cypress trees with minnows and bobbers out of Tom’s 22-foot “Avenger.”
Today I caught a 14.5-incher while trolling with jigs and some of my fishing goals for this trip were met. If there is a next year, I will spend some of my time living in the cypress trees and fishing out of my canoe and my goal is to crack 15 inches.
Some funny things about this trip: when we are in fishing in the cypress trees, which is jungle fishing, if there is such a thing, we have to be very careful due to the branches. It seems like one of us was always hung up and then there would be the one chance to pull your rig off the tree with a quick snap or have it get so wrapped up that it was gone for good. This was quite often a form of amusement for the audience.
I wrote last week that if you want to, you can fish with a hundred hooks a person down here. One way that many fishermen use a lot of hooks is with yo-yo’s. Yo-yo’s are a spring-operated spool that are tied to trees. The line is pulled below water level and generally baited with a minnow. Yo-yo’s are used down here and run kind of like a trap line. When you are fishing you can hear the spring kind of snap and if you look you will see a hooked fish swimming at water level.
Though the crappie fishing was slow but did pick up, another form of entertainment was hybrid white bass. Often, we would be trolling with eight rods and perhaps nothing would have happened for quite some time. If we would pass through a school of stripers that ranged from 12 to 21 inches, all hell would break loose, and we may have as many as four on at a time. Stripers fight like smallmouth and are good eating as long as you fillet out the blood line, which is very easy to do.
I would have to say that without a doubt, the best thing about this trip was three brothers committing to a week and having a great time together both in the boat and the cabin. Tom retired last year after 38 years with Exxon Corporation in Baton Rouge. Mike has been with Research Products for 38 years in Poynette and I have been writing this column for 31 years.
On this trip I realized for the first time that we are not exactly kids anymore and I am fine with that. It was so cool that twice Mike said, “We gotta make this an annual trip,” and today when we were fishing we made the executive decision to stay another day. I think as soon as we made that decision, along with a much improved crappie bite, it created what was the most carefree, plenty of laughs, stay up the latest night of the trip.
I know it might not happen, but I am trying to talk Tom into coming to deer camp this November and I have a strong feeling that I will be in Mississippi this winter, camping and hunting deer and hogs from a canoe.
Hooked on the south and the north! Sunset
